by Jenna Kernan
He stared at her. Had he not lost her already?
The tears came then, flowing in rivers down her cheeks. “Please, Sebastian. I know you are supernatural. And I know you are not a ghost. But the other possibilities…the doubt. It is worse than not knowing. I can’t stand it any longer.”
“Nothing is worse.”
“You’re wrong. This is cruel and you’re not cruel by nature.”
“I can be.”
“I don’t believe it.”
Sebastian stood silently, veiling his gaze with his emotions.
She lifted her chin in defiance, showing her bravery or foolishness. He could not decide which.
“You have powers, strengths I don’t understand, and you toy with me like a cat with a wounded bird.”
“I said I could be cruel.” Better for her to think that, believe it, than to know what it cost him to hurt her. It was like cutting his own flesh. He would do anything to protect her from pain, anything but show her the beast.
Her voice rose as she hurled words at him.
“Why didn’t you leave me there?” She covered her tearstained face with her hands.
As if he could. But she would leave him, had left him already.
The truth of it crept through him on tiny feet, settling in the pit of his stomach.
She would abandon him regardless of what he did. Tell her, don’t tell her, either way it was finished. All he had done was taste what he could never have.
This woman had made him feel human again. But she would run as soon as she could.
One look at her torment assured him that they could not continue as they had done.
He bowed his head in surrender.
It was why he did not travel with humans. It was too hard, too painful to see what could not be shared between them, the friendship, the trust, the understanding and, yes, the love. So he stood outside the fires of their camps, outside the limits of their cities, watching until it broke his heart, and then he retreated into the wild.
He backed toward the door, recognizing for the first time the heavy rain beating upon the roof. It seemed the sky cried with his little human. He had known he would hurt her, known he would disappoint her. Now it had come.
He turned to go, out into the storm, out into the wilderness that was his only refuge since his tribe had driven him away.
“Wait!”
She was tugging the flimsy pink top over her head, leaving her sex and her long, slim legs beautifully bare. Had it been only hours ago she had trusted him enough to wrap those long legs around him?
The yearning that swept through him nearly buckled his knees. But he bore it, as he bore all pain, in silence.
His first instinct had been right; she was far easier to pick up than to put down. But he had seen only her tiny body and not her powerful Spirit.
This weak and fragile little female had the strength to bring the great bear to his knees.
She reached for him, but now it was he who would pull back, no longer having the courage to read her thoughts.
“You’re leaving me?”
“You don’t understand.”
She reached for the lantern on the table, striking a match and touching it to the wick. Yellow light flooded the cabin. “Please don’t go. Stay and explain it to me. You tried to help me. I know it.”
He scooped up his cloak, throwing it over his shoulders as he stepped out into the storm. Cold droplets pelted his naked flesh. There in the darkness, illuminated by the shaft of light stealing from the cabin, he faced her again.
No more deception. She would see what he truly was.
She followed now in her jeans with feet still bare, tenacious as a wolf pup clinging to a scrap. Michaela lifted the kerosene lantern high, revealing the worry etched on her brow and the confusion set in her searching gaze, but he also saw courage in the tilt of her chin and the shoulders drawn back to face this next challenge. It was what had attracted him initially, that audacious nerve in the face of Nagi. She would need it now, to face him.
He reached for his cloak and hesitated, recalling his mother’s screams the first time she saw this. Was it the wind whistling in the branches, or did he hear her scream still?
Suddenly he was fourteen again, alone and confused as his mother fled from him as if he was Nagi himself.
“I’m sorry, Michaela.”
“For what?”
“I’m sorry I could not be the man you deserve.”
His hand came down upon his cloak, striking with a force that vibrated through his chest as he lashed out at himself with self-loathing.
At contact he felt the change. Swift as a diving peregrine, the energy of the Thunderbirds surged through his nerves, burning and snapping his head skyward. The rain pounded on his face as his claws tore from his nails and his coat grew to protect him from the storm.
He looked to the porch.
There she stood, frozen for one more moment. The lantern revealed her round, white eyes, her arm stiff as she held the light to expose him, still standing on two legs. He would never forget that look. It was the look she had cast on Nagi—the look of horror. Now she saw the truth and her expression killed any foolish hope he harbored that she might be different, might be strong enough to accept him for what he was.
How could he be so stupid?
She stood on the first step now, in the rain, holding the lantern high.
He wanted his animal mind to free him from this coursing agony. Why did it not come?
Always he had found escape from his human emotions in his animal half. But not now. Somehow she had broken the barrier between his two halves. Oh, sweet mystery, would he have to bear the agony of loss even as an animal?
He lifted his head and roared his raw pain to the heavens.
She staggered backward at his bellow, catching her leg on the porch. She caught herself, but the lantern fell, crashing down the steps, shattering on the ground. The kerosene blazed. The orange glow revealed her clutching both hands to her chest as if to protect her heart from him.
He wished he was like Bess and could speak from his animal form, to tell her he would not harm her. He took an awkward, upright step in her direction and she collided with the cabin wall, clamping her hands to her ears and squeezing her eyes shut. He recognized this stance, had seen it before, just before his mother began screaming.
He dropped to all fours and fled before he could hear Michaela’s screams.
Chapter 16
M ichaela stared in stunned silence at the huge grizzly rearing up before her.
The bear dropped to all fours and ran.
The bear who had rescued her—he had not called the bear. He was the bear.
She leaped over the flames and ran out into the howling gale, chasing after him in the darkness. She could see him as the fire glinted off his wet fur. He reached the trees with unnatural speed and fluid grace.
“Sebastian! Wait!”
He vanished into the forest, and even as she ran, barefoot over the thick, spongy tundra tussocks, she knew she would never catch him. She dropped to her knees on the boggy cotton grass.
“Sebastian, don’t go!”
Rain beat down, cold as slivers of ice upon her back, the camisole top sodden and clinging in the downpour.
The darkness closed around her. She glanced back the way she had come and saw the cabin porch blazing as the fire, protected by the roof, ate into the dry porch boards.
“No!” Michaela ran toward her only shelter.
She used the tarp from the woodpile to beat at the flames. But despite her efforts, the fire climbed up the upright pine beams, with the speed of rats boarding a ship, and began to eat at the rafters.
When she realized the cause was lost, her mind turned to salvage. Sebastian would come back. But how long would he be gone?
She tried not to entertain doubts. He would come, wouldn’t he?
Until he did, she needed the supplies to survive. The flames already covered the front entrance. She
ran around the cabin, to the side window, and used a chunk of firewood to break the glass. The sound could barely be heard above the thunderous downpour. She used a larger block of wood to climb up and through the window. The fire’s light came through the front door and she wondered how long until the roof collapsed. Already smoke billowed along the ceiling. She threw objects out the kitchen window, beginning with the canned food and moving to pots, pans, water jugs, utensils, candles.
She dragged on her jeans, dry wool socks and slipped into her boots, snatching up the sleeping bag as the fire broke a hole through the roof. Was the rain inside dousing the fire that ate into the wooden structure like a hoard of termites?
Black smoke billowed all around her as she stuffed the lighter into the front pocket of her jeans.
Weapons. Did she have any?
The two kitchen knives flew out into the night, their silver blades catching the orange light of the blazing roof. How long before it collapsed?
The roar grew louder, but she could not tell if it was the crackle of flames or the beating of the rain upon the planks.
Her eyes burned from the smoke, forcing her to the window.
The crashing behind her convinced her that she had overstayed her welcome. The porch roof collapsed first, taking down part of the front wall.
She screamed as the cabin shifted. Michaela crouched with both hands over her head, but the side walls held.
The collapsing front wall trapped her between the flames and the solid cabin wall to her rear.
Michaela charged to the side window, praying the walls would hold her weight. She staggered onto the table, invisible now in the thick smoke. Her fingers registered the plastic tablecloth and she grasped it as she staggered toward the window, dragging the covering from its place and sending objects crashing to the floor.
She scrambled onto the counter. A breath of sweet, fresh air gave her hope that she might escape.
Michaela used the tablecloth to protect her from the shards of glass littering the sill as she scrambled headfirst out the narrow gap and into the torrent. Clutching the sill, she managed to hold on until her feet were below her and dropped to the ground. With a free hand, she snatched the green-checked plastic, whisking it away as she ran.
Flames shot into the air, rising high into the darkness. The front half of the cabin was engulfed.
Michaela dropped to her knees in the mud, lifting the tablecloth over her head and dragging the coiled sleeping bag under the meager cover. The rain beat on the plastic in a constant rhythm accentuated by her thick, wet cough. She was dizzy from the smoke that had burned her lungs and stung her watering eyes. She lifted a hand, noting it was coated with soot.
She had burned her only shelter to the ground. Michaela knew enough about the wild to know that without shelter she had little chance of survival.
She needed Sebastian.
She crawled to the trees, propping herself against the spindly trunk of the spruce and drawing the plastic down over her head as her mind turned to what she had witnessed.
Sebastian, her protector, was a Skinwalker. Such creatures could take the shape of a man, but the trick seldom worked because they were animals by nature and so could not fool men for long.
But he had fooled her. She had willingly dismissed all the inconsistencies.
Her lover, her savior, was a fearsome grizzly bear nearly twelve feet tall.
What had he said to her, that he was sorry he couldn’t be the man she deserved?
Now it made sense: his strength and power, his attempts to be rid of her. He was not human, not really a man.
And yet she had slept with him—twice.
She sagged against the tree. What in the name of heaven and earth had she done?
Nagi was real, and Kanka, too. That meant the others were real as well. She pressed a hand over her mouth. Tob Tob. Had she lain with the great Spirit Bear himself?
What would happen now?
It made no sense. If such Spirits did exist, then they had taken measures to protect their identity from her race. To men, they existed only in lore. But they were real.
So why, of all the men and women of the world, was she the one they revealed themselves to?
Perhaps she wasn’t the only one. There were the legends to prove that.
She wondered about it all, the Spirit Road and the other stories. Was this why her mother had tried so hard to teach her of her culture? Did she know that things were not at all what they seemed?
But if she knew they were real, then why hadn’t she said so, told Michaela flat out?
Would you have believed her?
Another wall of the cabin crashed in and Michaela stared at the hungry orange flames as they battled the heavy rain for custody of the ruined structure.
The water would win, eventually. Already the fire hissed like a great snake, sending smoke billowing into the night sky, coiling and swirling.
Michaela held her breath.
It was the hiss of flame and water she heard. Please let it be the fire.
Her heart pounded as icy terror twisted within her. She was alone, vulnerable.
But that was when he always came. Yes, there was no mistaking him now, taking shape before her, gathering his substance from the fire. The smoke had a head and arms. The yellow eyes snapped open, pinning her with a ghostly, evil glare.
“Nagi,” she breathed.
“I see you,” he hissed, unable to contain his glee. He could smell her weakness now. His touch had eaten far into her Spirit, tearing the connection between flesh and soul. Soon her body would no longer be able to hold what would be his. Her end grew near.
Above him, his ghosts circled, called by her impending death. The odor was irresistible, drawing them to witness the separation of the soul from the vessel.
Each longed for that vessel, would try to take it as their own. But it was up to Nagi to decide who, if any, would have her discarded form.
Just a little longer and he would have her soul.
Sebastian ran nearly a mile before coming to a stop. He rose upon his hind feet and lifted his arms, changing back into the man he wished to be.
The heavy rain suited his dark mood. He had broken the rules of the Inanoka when he transformed before her. She had seen his true nature.
He had given her what she sought—the truth—and he had lost her. His head drooped still farther. He would miss his little human.
His actions would force her to make a difficult choice. Stay with him a little longer or face Nagi alone? She would stay a little longer—wouldn’t she?
He did not like this aching uncertainty gnawing inside him. How could he let her break his heart? He was strong. He did not need anyone. Hadn’t his years of solitude proven he could live without a woman?
He turned and looked back the way he had come. He would have to face her again. He dreaded the encounter, but he started back. He could not cower like a cub. He was of the Bear Clan and bears faced all challenges head-on.
Her scream still rang in his ears.
He could almost hear it on the wind.
“Sebastian.”
He stilled. The sound was faint, but he thought it was not his imagination…
“Sebastian! Help!”
He exploded into motion, charging over the tundra. The branches gave way, cracking and snapping as he barreled past at full speed. He ran down the steep hill, reaching full stride for the first time and topping thirty miles an hour, desperate to reach her. Now he smelled smoke, too much for a woodstove.
He recalled the lantern slipping from her hands and then the sound of breaking glass.
Sebastian stretched out his stride. She needed him. That was all he needed to know.
He broke into the clearing to find the smoldering wreck of burning wood. There, using the black smoke to take shape, Nagi billowed, menacing Michaela, who lay motionless upon the ground.
Sebastian roared his fury and charged. Nagi turned his evil yellow eyes on him as Sebastian attacked
, but his blows went through the wraithlike body of Nagi.
“Go away, Inanoka,” he growled. “You have lost.”
Sebastian swung again. Nagi’s body reassembled behind the blow.
“Do you think to keep this frail one? Ha!” Nagi undulated before him. “Find another, little cub, for this one is already mine.”
Sebastian lunged, breaking through the wall of acrid smoke that was Nagi. The ruler of the ghosts recon-verged as soon as he had passed.
“All you did was slow the inevitable. Each time I come, she is closer to death. You cannot stop it, for my power is greater than yours.”
Everything Nagi said was true, but none of that would keep him from trying to save her. He would stand between Michaela and this terrible end. It was not enough, but he would do all he could because for the first time in his life he knew where he belonged—here by her side.
“You can’t have her.”
Nagi laughed. “Can’t I?”
He lifted a ghostly hand. Behind him, Michaela screamed. Above him, the whirling dark smoke reeked of death. Ghosts, he realized.
The smoke gave him an idea. She was not strong enough for such a journey, but to stay was to watch her die.
He did not deliberate. He knew this might kill her, but his instinct told him to act and so he did. He scooped up her limp form from the sodden earth and closed his powerful arms around her, then he raised his head and bellowed to the heavens, calling to the Thunderbirds.
They came.
The huge flapping wings sent Nagi swirling like smoke from a pipe. The screech of the great birds’ call caused even Nagi to tremble. They swooped from the west and lifted Sebastian and Michaela into the sky.
Nagi tried to follow, but they beat him back with their mighty wings, sending him into a swirling vortex that was too great even for him.
Michaela stirred in Sebastian’s arms and her eyes fell open. She looked up at him with eyes wide and bulging, like a creature held under the water. He knew she could not breathe, that he was killing her, and he urged his friends to greater speed.
Michaela looked around her. Did she see the great birds? If a human even glimpsed them she would be Heyoka, with healing powers and the ability to understand the messages in dreams.